WE SEE THING AS WE ARE

As Anaïs Nin says in her famous quote, “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”

Our experiences, beliefs, emotions, and biases shape how we interpret the world around us.

Each of us views reality through the particular lens of our own unique perspective. The way we see and understand things is heavily influenced by our personal history, cultural background, values, and thought patterns. What may seem completely obvious and straightforward to one person can be perceived very differently by someone else.

In yoga philosophy, the root cause of our limited and distorted view of reality is the ego-self, or “ahamkara” in Sanskrit. This is the part of us that constructs a separate sense of “I” and “mine”, filtering all of our perceptions and experiences through the lens of our personal preferences, biases, and conditionings from not just this life but from past ones too.

As the Bhagavad Gita teaches, “Established in the self, be untroubled.” When we abide in our essential nature beyond the limited ego, we find that our experience of reality shifts dramatically. We see not with the eyes of separation, but with the eyes of unity.

Recognizing this fundamental truth about the human condition can actually be quite liberating. It encourages us to approach the world with more humility and openness. If we know that we’re all “seeing things as we are” rather than as they truly are, we become more curious about and respectful of differing perspectives.